PUNE: Women are breaking into what has traditionally been a male stronghold — the shopfloor, and engineering companies are taking the lead in opening up the opportunity for them. Kirloskar Brothers has a 100% women-run plant working a single shift at Coimbatore, while Cummins India began to employ women on the shopfloor at a greenfield plant in Phaltan, near Pune, in June.

Small household pumps are assembled at the plant. All 36 employees , from those on the shopfloor to supervisory engineers, are now women. "There's no reason not to employ an intelligent, contributing human resource wherever appropriate . We are not short of 'man' power , but it is only a matter of time before more women are employed on factory shopfloors," says SC Kirloskar, chairman and managing director, Kirloskar Brothers. At Cummins, women comprise 25% of the total workforce.

"We cannot afford to ignore half the population in a situation when everyone is struggling for talent," says Nagarajan Balanaga, vice president, HR, Cummins India Area Business Office, an umbrella organisation under which all the Cummins entities in India operate. Kirloskar Brothers says it will replicate this at its Sanand, Gujarat , plant which will go on stream before the end of the current fiscal .

Although the plant will manufacture submersible pumps, women can be employed in areas where small components are handled, he says. For Cummins, the issue is one of diversity, says Anant Talaulicar, chairman and managing director , Cummins India and global head of components. "Diversity is not possible without representation for all, so we have to ensure that gender, race, region, religion , etc, do not come in the way of employment. Of all these issues , gender is the most important ," he says.

Talaulicar says the company is also opening up employment opportunities . "We are doing this primarily for business, to inclucate ideas of inclusion and fearlessness which we hope will lead to innovation ," he says. The company began with four women in the workforce to reach 25% by the end of 2011 across the group. At Phaltan , it had 25% women in the first year, which will be scaled up by five percentage points every year to reach half the workforce, he says. But beyond ensuring diversity, there are challenges. For one, there are no regulatory clearances yet to employ women on the shopfloor post-7 pm.

Cummins has applied to the Maharashtra government for approval. There's also the question of a change in mindset . Cummins ran courses to sensitise the organisation , bringing in consultants from the US as well. "We also formed women's affinity groups where membership is open to all," says Balanaga. The move has yielded rich dividends . "We began this programme in the Tata Cummins plant in Jamshedpur two years ago and we were worried if women could handle the heavy work.

Today, managers there want more women because they bring a family feeling to the workplace. Women bring a sense of completeness to the workforce," says Vikas Thapa , Cummins India's head of HR at the Phaltan megasite. Both KBL and Cummins India plan to replicate this across the country. "We intend to steadily bring women on the shopfloor at our Dewas and Jamshedpur plants," says Balanaga.